Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Mehmet Kemal Bozay has said ministry officials have been engaged in talks with their EU counterparts on visa facilitation for Turkish citizens as a growing number of Turks complain about the rejection of their visa applications, the SchengenVisaInfo.com reported.
Bozay said the parties have discussed how the current rules can be eased, with Turkey pushing for a facilitated Schengen visa application process for students, businesspeople, artists, academics and media professionals.
In addition Turkish authorities are requiring that the visa applications of those groups be processed more quickly, allowing them to obtain their documents without having to wait a long period of time.
While the EU has not yet made any official statement on the matter, Bozay said the country expects good news soon.
Bozay said there has already been a slight improvement in the processing of Schengen visa applications in some parts of the country and that the wait for an appointment been reduced from four weeks to two.
According to an earlier report by Turkish economic news outlet Ekonomim, Turkey has the second-highest number of Schengen visa applications after Russia, but its rejection rate is almost five times higher than Russia’s. Turkey has the highest rejection rate among the top five countries in the number of Schengen visa applications submitted — Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Ukraine — in the last eight years.
A report submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) by Turkish lawmaker Ziya Altunyaldız of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in July 2022 showed an increase in the rejection rate of Schengen visa applications submitted by Turkish citizens from 4 percent in 2014 to 12.7 percent in 2020.